Personalize me, baby “The Net is finally
delivering on an old promise: Introducing us to new music
that we really, really like… Another company has emerged from
Boston: Media Unbound. Like Firefly, Media Unbound is
offering a personalized recommendation system that will
suggest bands you might enjoy, based on ones that you
already like. Unlike Firefly, Media Unbound does what it
promises to do: introduce new, obscure bands you’ll actually
like.

And Media Unbound isn’t alone — there’s also Mubu.com,
which offers a similar service; and MoodLogic, which takes
a more search-engine approach. Similarly, the
music-discovery search engine Gigabeat was purchased by
Napster two weeks ago.

And that’s where it gets interesting. If personalization that
works truly has broken through, it’s possible to imagine a
future in which obscure bands do get more time in the sun.
Because personalized music recommendation technology in
combination with file-trading services like Napster or
Gnutella could be an amazingly potent brew.” Salon